Economics Education Moves ‘Sideways’

More U.S. students are taking personal finance or economics classes than before, but many schools have yet to teach either subject.

According to a report out Wednesday, high schools in just 24 states offer economics courses, while 22 states have an economics requirement, little changed from the most recent survey two years ago.

“Survey of the States: Economic and Personal Finance Education in Our Nation’s Schools,” was prepared by the Council for Economic Education, a group that promotes financial education in kindergarten through high school.

The latest results, based on 2013 data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, show that grade-school education in economics and personal finance is largely “moving sideways,” in the U.S., said Alan B. Krueger, an economics professor at Princeton University and former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Mr. Krueger, who was chief economist for the Council for Economic Education, has written a high-school textbook, “Explorations in Economics,” with David A. Anderson. The book was published late last year and already is being used in classrooms. http://www.highschool.bfwpub.com/Catalog/static/hs/explorations/

The latest “Survey of the States” indicates that the need for such instruction is acute. After increasing steadily over the 15 years since the surveys began, the spread of personal-finance and economics education appears to have plateaued in recent years. Last year, just 18 states required high schools to offer personal-finance courses. Sixteen states required high-school students to take such courses and only six states—Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri and Texas—mandated tests on the subject.

Personal finance is explained through the lens of behavioral economics in Mr. Krueger’s textbook, which is aimed at students in ninth through twelfth grades. Drafting the textbook was “the hardest writing I ever did,” said Mr. Krueger. “It is a challenge to write for that audience.” He relied on feedback from teachers to hone chapters and efficiently cover economic fundamentals—and meet state education standards—in limited time and space.

“I wanted to kind of reinvent the class” of economics for high-school students, Mr. Krueger said. “I wanted to start from scratch.” What he didn’t want to do was simply rework a college-level text for high-school teachers and students. That meant tapping examples and language relevant to teenage readers, as well as real-life examples of economics at work. (One example from the behavioral economics chapter explains how Sweden enlisted intriguing design—painting steps from a subway station in black and white to appear like a piano keyboard—to encourage passengers to walk up stairs rather than ride an escalator.) The textbook also is dotted with interviews in which executives such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Ford’s chief economist, Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, discuss the influence of economics in their lives.)

“I think there is a tremendous opportunity to expand the horizons of a large number of high-school students,” Mr. Krueger said.

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